first era history of high rock

[08:14:06] <Zini> simple first era timeline of heirruch:  merethic-240:  Control by the direnni, from the reach all the way down to Daggerfall and on the fertile northern coast of Hammerfell.  Native northwest nedics have been enslaved for at least centuries in a manner of slavery that either developed into or began as a relationship between feudal villager and city bretons and their altmer noble lords.  They have
[08:16:17] <Zini> been removed for the most part from their old gods and tribal societies and reeducated with suitable altmeri deities, with gods like Magnus, Phynaster, Jephre, Mara, and Zen proving to be popular.  Secluded shamanistic 'witchfolk' persist, either because they hid from the direnni until the direnni relented enough to allow their existence, or because the direnni allowed their existence in the first
[08:18:03] <Zini> place.  The reachmen, who's lands were civilized by direnni late in this period when the direnni had already relaxed and decided men weren't nothing but animals but rather just uncivilized and short lived brutes, and when they already had plenty of slave population.  They are allowed to retain their culture and tribal karth societies as long as they respect direnni forts and supply lines, which
[08:18:06] <Zini> for the most part they do.
[08:20:46] <Zini> 240-369: The Nords engage in their conquest of the nordic empire under Vrage the gifted and suceed in dominating the lands of the chimer and subjugating the powerful but fractured dwemeri stronghold-cities, as well as occupying and effectively taking the northern half of the hegemony lands.  Under nords bretons are given more social freedom but at the same time attempts are made to forcibly
[08:21:57] <Zini> convert them to nordic culture, which has a lasting impact on the northern bretons and creates a lasting resentment in the hearts of reachmen towards nords, against whom repeated attempts are made to destroy their tribal old god faiths and disband their karths.
[08:24:20] <Zini> 369-420:  The Nordic empire collapses thanks to the miscalculated invasion of valenwood by King Borgas, a fanatic of the (within the nord empire) minority alessian faith.  Over the course of decades they lose every inch of land they had conquered as their chiefdoms wage war against each other, with the Chimer and Eastern Dwemer uniting under one flag of Resdayn to overthrow the nords and the
[08:26:10] <Zini> Direnni marching northward and reclaiming mile by mile of land, being welcomed back by some bretons, indifferently regarded as just another lord by some, and resented by others as they are pushed back under the less socially free rule of the direnni.  The Reachmen especially are happy to see the return of the Direnni, who as they always did continue to respect (if with mild disgust) the tribal
[08:27:35] <Zini> faiths and karths of skyrim northwest nedes.  The nords even further are fully conquered by the alessians, the remaining bits of skyrim falling under southern flag as a vassal kingdom, and the faith of the one is pushed on them, where it becomes the majority faith.
[08:29:23] <Zini> 420-482:  The direnni have reestablished their hegemony and rule over it as they did before, though face frequent troubles from the now mildly-nordic northern bretons.  The Alessians capitalize on this tension and the northern bretons mild feelings of conection to the nords to seep their faith into the feudal bretons, where it begins to form in northern high rock as an underground religion and the
[08:30:35] <Zini> *then like a weed further south.  By the 470s it has become enough of a problem that the direnni have responded to uprisings of Alessian faith lethally, putting 'priests' to the sword and disbanding its worshippers.
[08:32:34] <Zini> 482:  The direnni fall under direct threat from the alessians, who intend to fully make land invasion of the direnni, due to arrive by their massive niben fleets in the southern tip of the hegemony.  desperate for allies the Direnni secretly reach out to the frustrated nordic vassal-kings, who have grown to resent the southerners and harbor secret distrust and hate for the alessian faith.  Despite
[08:34:26] <Zini> the nordic king's reputation for raids on Resdaynian lands that earned him the name 'Mer-Killer', he agrees, seeing the opportunity to finally cast off the nibenese.  The armies of both meet the niben armies on the fields of Glenumbra, where an epic battle occurs.  By the end of Glenumbra, it has ended disastrously for the nibenese, their army nearly entirely destroyed after merciless slaughter by
[08:37:09] <Zini> breton-direnni legions and berserk nordic warriors and tongues.  Unable to enforce their lands, the faith of the One would collapse into a minority cult within decades.  The Direnni and nords both however took significant losses- The Direnni losing thousands of their best and brightest Altmer to devout niben troops and the Nords loosing their king Hoag.
[08:40:11] <Zini> 482-500:  The Direnni Hegemony slowly collapses, not with a bang but with a whimper.  Reeve by Reeve, the Direnni lose control of tiny pieces of their hegemony, either by simply being unable to afford maintaining the land or revolt by Breton groups (in some cases radical but strong minorities, in other cases majorities).  by the year 500, The direnni only maintain strongholds on Balfiera, in the
[08:40:12] Acer [~Acer@16190e58.307615a5.2e138044.d14813fX] has quit IRC: Read error: Connection reset by peer
[08:41:47] <Zini> reach (where the Reachmen have become willing to die to keep them in power rather than the newly independent nords who eye them hungrily), and enclaves along the northern shore of hammerfell.  Within decades they are forced to pull out of the reach, unable to maintain it at such distance from their home of Balfiera.
[08:50:13] <Zini> 500-1029: the first period of Breton sovereignty begins, a highly romanticized period subject to many a tamrielic storybook of historical fantasy.  The Bretons establish feudal kingdoms remniscent of the Direnni, though unlike the direnni these feudal kingdoms are unaligned as a hegemony.  Several notable events happen during this time period, including the rise and fall of the great and dreaded
[08:52:38] <Zini> Breton witch kings of the north, dark and foreboding necromantic kings and worshippers of daedra, some of whom reigned over their expanse for more than a hundred years before being felled/banished to prison-tombs, the last of which being King Styriche the Vampire who would last until the end of the period.  Many conflicts occurred between the bretons and the colovians in this period over control
[08:55:19] <Zini> of free islands in the abecean and of fertile deathland coastlines, prompting many battles on the sea, on the deadland coasts, and in southern highrock and coastal colovia, as well as the initial settlement of breton minorities into colovia and colovian minorities into High Rock.  In 808 the Redgaurds arrived in full force, sweeping into the deadlands and annihalating all existing holdings there,
[08:57:36] <Zini> be they breton, colovian, orsimer, ayleid, or direnni.  through respective efforts of the altmer of Balfiera, the bretons of the illiac and of the Bjoulsae river system, and the colovians, they are contained there and do not advance further, and for decades are reviled by all parties for their foreign gods, strange culture, and bull-rush conquest
[09:00:00] <Zini> However after decades mutual martial respect forms between them and the colovians, and trade begins, alongside conflicts not fueled by any hate between the two but by the nature of colovian kingdoms, a cycle of conquest the southern redgaurds are happy to participate in.  Meanwhile to the north the ice is melted over distaste of a common enemy:  The Orcs, who inhabit the mountains of the wrothgar
[09:02:02] <Zini> and northern hammerfell in the 'kingdom' of Orsinium.  The state of this kingdom is unknown and lost to history;  Among orcs it is almost universally painted in a positive light as a mountain kingdom where orcs, goblins, and ogres all lived in relative peace, clans feuding for supremacy as clans should while the great city of Orsinium sat above it all as a sanctuary of peace between clans and a
[09:03:30] <Zini> unity of Malacath's outcast peoples.  To the redgaurds and Bretons, it was the home of filthy and disgusting beastmer raiders who lived in mountain mud huts and wallowed in filth while chanting to their barbarian corrupted god and engaging in meaningless feuds.
[09:05:57] <Zini> King Joile, through a brief but meaningful alliance of Illiac bretons, united with the northern kingdom of Sentinel in an alliance facilitated with his unlikely friend Shinji of the Order of Diagna, with whom he had exchanged letters for years and on multiple occasions invited to his castle, usually to partake in various celebrations or to observe/take part in various tournaments.
[09:07:44] <Zini> The combined Breton-Redgaurd forces laid waste to the orcs, and through blood shed as brothers in arms and the blood shed by their eneimies, became friends as societies, and despite differing religion and culture opened up trade and moved more freely between each others borders.  This would create the northern forebears, who would blend their yokudan heritage with the ways of their northern
[09:10:36] <Zini> friends, adopting some of their armors and weaponry, incorporating some of their methods regarding kingdoms, and even adopting some of their names.
[09:13:02] <Zini> Meanwhile the oft-besieged Reachmen, frequently facing off incursion by breton witch-kings in the west and nord-god crusaders in the east, welcomed their elven pariah counterparts as they fled the burning Orsinium in the east, desperate for an ally and sympathetic to their state as outcasts and their worship of daedra.  Many orc strongholds were established in the reach and the durcorach mountains
[09:14:34] <Zini> , where they would be treated as equals by the reachmen- which still meant they frequently beat each other's faces in, as is customary between karths, but the orcs were fine with this, as this was also customary between clans.  The reachmen, who already had some altmer and nordic blood from respective occupations, interbred and intermarried/interconcubined with the orcs, further differing
[09:15:09] <Zini> themselves genetically from the bretons and further cementing their status as wretches to the bretons, nords, colovians, and nibenese.
[09:21:34] <Zini> 1029-1030:  Sometime before this date, Hestra comes into power, backing a true eight divines as the faith of the nibenay, while tolerating the existence of cults in a way that allows the niben cult-culture to flourish.  This centrality around the gods of old ales picques the curiosity and interest of the long distant colovians, and through her finesse pulls the colovians into her empire, creating
[09:23:49] <Zini> a true Cyrodiil.  It is with this true Cyrodiil that she sets about the task of attempting to unite all men under her banner and the banner of alessia's gods, focusing her efforts northwards to the nords and the bretons, and doing what she can to establish missionaries to the southern forebears, who manage to establish the eight divines as a minority faith through efforts to find the connections
[09:25:34] <Zini> between existing popular redgaurd gods and Alessia's eight.  In Skyrim she manages to reintroduce the eight divines as a minority faith to the nords as well, though the vast majority of nords reject it both out of preference for the classic nordic gods and out of longstanding distrust and dislike for their southern neighbors.  It is in High Rock that she sees the most success.
[09:28:33] <Zini> Her efforts begin with the Reach, which as a tribal collection of clans has no generally respected rights of sovereignty and is seen as up for grabs.  Hestra's forces march through the pale pass, for the first time uniting the spies and battlemages of the nibenay with the martial prowess and discipline of the colovians in the first true imperial legion.  The results are devastating for the
[09:30:46] <Zini> reachmen, who defend their homeland valiantly but lose nearly every battle.  The defense of the home and the monstrosity of the southerners is legend among the reachmen, who revere the karth-king Faolan, who united the orc clans and reachmen karths for the most successful but still ill-fated defenses against imperial invasion.  by the end of the year Hestra held the reach under the legion's boot,
[09:32:14] <Zini> forcing the karths to incorporate themselves into southern beuracracy as conquered imperial vassals, crippling the political power of the shamans, and pushing the orc scum out of the mainlands of the reach and fully into the durcorachs.
[09:33:54] <Zini> To this day the reachmen feel a great grudge towards the southerners for the invasion of the reach, and nearly all troubles caused by foreigners is pinned as only being possible because of Hestra's invasion. Hestra herself is reviled as demonic and cruel among them- which might not be /too/ far from the truth, but that is entirely speculation and stories uncollaborated by physical evidence.
[09:36:06] <Zini> Hestra's next action was to target the elf-god worshipping bretons, though not quite as hostily as she did to the reachmen, as the bretons were sovereign, if laughable, kingdoms.  She began her conquest by marching into the lands of the last witch king, Styriche the vampire.  She burned the dread palace at Verkarth to the ground and slaughtered his hordes of vampires, werewolves, and undead
[09:36:28] <Zini> wherever her legion encountered them, forcing Styriche to retreat with his Gray Host further south,
[09:36:31] <Zini> (fuck)
[09:38:24] <Zini> ravaging the breton kingdoms and peoples along the way while being continuously persued by the legion, forcing them to abandon their briefly made holdings as they went.  for the purpose of diplomacy Hestra beared a merciful side toward the bretons they liberated from both styriche's domain and the places they ravaged, helping to rebuild and provide plentiful niben rice as food to the pillaged men,
[09:40:06] <Zini> gaining their respect and adoration.  Eventually the bretons of Bangkorai, anticipating the arrival of Styriche, dug in tight and prepared to defend against him.  Though they likely would have fallen if the ensuing battles and sieges would have continued for years, they successfully stopped Styriche's advance, allowing the legion to catch up, destroy the remainders of the Grey Host, and capture
[09:41:42] <Zini> Styriche, after which he was beheaded, burned to ashes, then had his ashes mixed with silver filings and placed in an urn.  The location of this urn is unknown, though it is rumored to be either kept in a hidden fortification deep in the wrothgars, or hidden away in the Imperial archives at white gold.
[09:44:02] <Zini> Hestra continues to occupy the lands north of the Bangkorai, assigning a breto-nordic governor for Styriche's former lands from among the populace and occupying the lands where Styriche's ravaging crippled the militaries or slaughtered the nobility, keeping the land safe from bandits and distributing supplies.  It is doubtful this was all out of the goodness of her heart, and more likely it was to
[09:46:09] <Zini> make these northern bretons more receptive to vassalization and missionaries of the eight.  Over the course of the next few years Hestra expanded her power southward down high rock, using her dark and sexual charisma, strategic and political finesse, brute strength of her armies, and plentifulness of her supplies to pull the breton kings one by one in as vassal kingdoms, until finally all of the
[09:49:26] <Zini> land was under the imperials.  Hestra declared the land a new province of her empire, naming it after the direnni term for the land, a term that more translated to 'land around the exalted rock', from which she simply pulled 'Altbal' and translated it as High Rock.  The eight divines spread among the bretons through the zealous missionary work of the nibenese and the already converted bretons.
[09:52:20] <Zini> The cult accepting nature of the nibenese made it so that they had no problem with the bretons retaining their old elven gods or their shaministic witch covens, as long as they held the eight above all others, resulting in a popular 'pantheon' in use to this day of  Kynarette, Julien, Dibelle, Marie, Ariel/Aquetoche, Archei, Stenderre, Zenne, Magnus, Jephre, Pheinastre, Meridie, and Azur.
[09:52:33] <Zini> (brb)
[09:52:46] <Zini> (insert comments or opinions so far when I return)
[10:00:51] Connection to server lost
[10:02:49] Zini [~kvirc@8d7465b.33fe9952.indoor.siu.edu] has joined #memospore2
[10:02:49] Channel topic is: >>> #memospore2 <<<  Wheels within wheels | RULES / http://d.pr/DtoV/3zUf9jLe | #memospore - primary discussion channel
[10:02:49] Topic was set by Dovahkiin on Wed May 7 21:23:52 2014
[10:03:04] <Zini> (alright so opinions before I continue?)
[10:03:07] excalibur.pa.us.irchighway.net [*@*] has set channel mode +tnr
[10:03:07] Channel was created at Wed Mar 13 22:38:33 2013
[10:03:11] Channel synchronized in 22.0 seconds
[10:03:20] <Zini> (I-I'm making a lot of this up as I go and doing what I can to pull from memory)
[10:08:37] <Zini> (nvm I'll just continue)
[10:08:57] <Sefiriot> Keep going
[10:09:17] <Sefiriot> Sorry, trying to debug my OS X virtual machine at the moment
[10:09:28] <Sefiriot> Kinda distracted here
[10:10:19] <Zini> While Hestra was successful in estabishing a new province, it is to be noted that it was a /loose/ province. While king's peace was for the most part enforced in Nibenay, where the tradition of usurpation and feuding was through subterfuge, and in the reach, simply because she didn't like reachmen, she allowed interwarring to persist among the colovians and the bretons, whose cultural methods of
[10:12:20] <Zini> usurpation and feuding was through brief but bloody fits of violence.  And so war was common among the kingdoms of the province of High Rock, a famous one being the conflict between the breto-nordic Reich Gradkeep against the mostly breton Sensford at Duncreigh bridge in the 1400s.
[10:14:22] <Sefiriot> Looks very good so far
[10:14:26] <Zini> Post Hestra-pre break history for the most part is often confusing and poorly documented, all across tamriel- it is unknown why this period is so poorly documented, though theories range from it being the rule of a 'divinely' immortal hestra, to a period of abomination stricken from records by later reman rulers,  to a simple casualty of both the interregnum and dragon break that destroyed many
[10:14:28] <Sefiriot> Me like
[10:14:41] <Zini> other historical documents.
[10:17:01] <Zini> History is muddy and confusing for nearly the next thousand years across all tamriel, a period colloquially known as 'the dragon break'.  The traditional theory is that some catastrophic event literally 'broke the dragon', disabling Akatosh and the coherency of time for an extended period, though some modern theories simply state that it was just the result of poor documentation and the chaos
[10:18:38] <Sefiriot> mmhm
[10:18:57] <Zini> across tamriel during the war of the righteousness.  Whatever the cause of this period, we have no definitive analysis of what occurred in High Rock during this time, and we only know that when well recorded history picks back up, it is in a similar state as it was immediately after Hestra- a loosely united but fairly loyal to Cyrodiil province.  One of the most notable changes is the introduction
[10:19:43] <Zini> of two new characters to the common bretonic 'pantheon' of popular gods:  Raymond, and simply 'The Stars'.
[10:21:14] <Zini> Raymond himself is an elusive character, and what little can be verified is that he was a powerful king, though it is not known whether he was just a powerful one of the vassal kings, a king and provincial governor of the whole of the rock, or somehow the leader of an independent high rock that ended up back in imperial hands by the end of the break.  Though he has no confirmed surviving dynasty,
[10:23:00] <Zini> even in the days immediately after the break, he holds a legacy as a deity remniscent of the degree to which the nibenese revere their hero-saints, standing as a god of proper kingly behavior and respectful warfare to the bretons, and entering into the already thousands-full redgaurd pantheon (at least among the north forebears) as a god of defensive martial techniques- sometimes simplified as '
[10:24:24] <Zini> 'foreign techniques'.  The Stars, apparently significant to his reign, entered the common pantheon as well, joining Magnus.  The fairly common tamrielic phrase 'Stars Above!' holds its origins among Bretonic sailors, who used it as it is used today as an expression of surprise.
[10:27:21] <Zini> Recorded history picks back up with the 22nd century, as the dreaded and hated sload turn their attention from solely attacking the Altmer to unleashing toxic plagues on all Abecean nations, subjecting the Bosmer, Bretons, Altmer, Colovians, and Redgaurds to the lethal and necromantically produced Thrassian plague.  Thousands die all across tamriel's western coasts, and in a rare act of charity
[10:29:48] <Zini> and compassion, the Direnni invite the coastal breton nobility and the lords of Sentinel to the masterfully warded isle of Balfiera, along with at least 10000 breton refugees of uninhabitably plague-festered regions of High Rock.  It is unknown why /exactly/ the Direnni showed this kindness and opened their borders to these carefully selected men; though theories range from a softening of the
[10:32:43] <Zini> Direnni leadership in its ire toward the conquest of man, or perhaps foresight of the great western alliance to come against the sload.  Either way it is this action that likely planted the seeds of the modern respect and romanticization the Breton's hold toward their former overlords, and the respectful status their dynasty held under the Reman empire.
[10:34:42] <Zini> For several decades High Rock's coasts would fester, and the rock's resources were devoted to combatting the plague and incursions by Sloadic abominations onto their shores.  It is sometime between the beginning of the 22nd century and the mid 22nd that the great Bendu Olo began his grand project- uniting the many different peoples of the Abecean under a single alliance, the All Flags Navy.
[10:38:52] <Zini> Bendu and his cadre of diplomats, his general, and high admiral personally travelled to the coastal kingdoms, funded by loans or grants from the current empress at white gold.  He met and dined with the Camorans at Falinesti, marched through deserts to meet Alik'r sultans and Yoku traditionalist kings, met with the Direnni and the assembled breton nobles at Balfiera, and met with envoys from
[10:40:53] <Zini> Alinor at the small island chain between Summerset and Valenwood.  He acquired the pledges of alliance from each, and Bendu created his navy, pulling boats from fleets of all of these peoples and recieving a high-admiral from each one to oversee their ships.  From the Bretons he recieved the famed Guy Mard, who is notable as the founder of the great Guimard dynasty, that ruled over the kingdom of
[10:44:11] <Zini> Evermore from then to the mid-third era, when their dynasty was vanquished by the fiendish Potema and her undead hordes.  Under Olo's guidance, great naval bases were constructed all across western tamriel, which housed the many boats of the navy.  Olo led a great military campaign against the many Sload island holdings, siezing them and using them as further bases in the Abecean.  By 2260 the All
[10:45:52] <Zini> Flags Navy's efforts culminated in a massive confrontation with the organic fleets of the Sload, with every boat and admiral in the navy confronting them head on, in an epic and legendary battle that even the great altmer deity-mage Syrabane participated in.  By the end of the battle, the coral tower was smashed, the sload homeland was mostly sunken, and the entirety fo the sload fleets were
[10:47:28] <Zini> destroyed.  No longer maintained by necromantic magics, the Thrassian plague faded by the end of the year and the previously toxic regions of coast were once more habitable, and the breton nobility left Balfiera for their respective courts.  The siezed abecean islands were distributed among the participants of the Navy by their contributions, and the naval bases established were transformed into
[10:49:19] <Zini> ports of trade.  The connections made by the navy would transform the abecean as a moderate region of trade into a mercantile powerhouse, as some altmer begrudgingly allowed trade for some tamrielic goods that some of them had grown fond of during their participation in the navy, like fine colovian wines, luxurious niben silks, and breton brandies, and bosmer were formally introduced to the northe
[10:49:25] <Zini> *northern men
[10:49:31] <Zini> (brb)
[11:01:05] Connection to server lost
[11:01:53] *Global* [Logon News - Apr 04 2004] Attention: Please do NOT click on URLs that unknown people send you and remember to report all spammers to #abuse.
[11:01:53] *Global* [Logon News - Mar 18 2005] Your host is being checked for open proxies. Please disregard connections to ports like 8080 or 3128.
[11:01:53] *Global* [Logon News - Oct 13 2015] By connecting to this network, you state that you have read and agreed to our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and Privacy Statement which may be viewed at https://irchighway.net/rules/irchighway-rules
[11:01:53] Zini [~kvirc@306c6d51.33fe9952.indoor.siu.edu] has joined #memospore2
[11:01:53] Channel topic is: >>> #memospore2 <<<  Wheels within wheels | RULES / http://d.pr/DtoV/3zUf9jLe | #memospore - primary discussion channel
[11:01:53] Topic was set by Dovahkiin on Wed May 7 21:23:52 2014
[11:01:53] *Arena* [#memospore] Welcome to the Memospore! Please take a second to read the official rules (effective May 7, 2014): http://d.pr/DtoV/3zUf9jLe
[11:01:53] *Arena* [#memospore2] Welcome to the Memospore! Please take a second to read the official rules (effective May 7, 2014): http://d.pr/DtoV/3zUf9jLe
[11:02:09] caliburn.pa.us.irchighway.net [*@*] has set channel mode +tnr
[11:02:09] Channel was created at Wed Mar 13 22:38:33 2013
[11:02:13] Channel synchronized in 20.0 seconds
[11:02:16] <Zini> (alright, continuing)
[11:04:07] <Zini> Despite the positive and unifying note left by the All Flags Navy on the state of Tamriel and the uneasy friendship between the many cultures of the western sea, including the remaining Yokudans on the island wastes of what remained of that land, Tamriel would soon enter into one of its darkest and bloodiest chapters yet:  The War of the righteousness.
[11:07:30] <Zini> 2260-2321:  The war of the righteousness looms on the horizon as the imperial heartland grows more and more decadent and despotic, the (presumed) descendants of Hestra mad with power, wealth, daedric dabbling, and possibly incest.  The Emperor/Empress, head of both the state and the Temple of the nine divines, continuously abused their powers, acting arbitrarily and taxing the vassal kingdoms of
[11:09:15] <Sefiriot> (definitely liking this. I hope you have it all stashed somewhere more permanent than IRC and/or pastebin)
[11:09:50] <Zini> the high rock, the lords of colovia, and the merchant kings of the niben ludicrously.  Frustrations held by the peoples of all three provinces led to alternative offshoots of the eight, which in startling motions by the temple that harked back to the days of the one were labeled as heresies rather than cults, due to their refusal to acknowledge the emperor as the head of their offshoot.  These
[11:11:00] <Zini> heresies were often slaughtered in mass purges, the tyrannical self-destruction of the empire of Alessia building to a boiling point, until finally, in the year 2321, multiple battles broke out, not as the direct action of any general but in independent revolts that would later be grouped together as the beginnings of the war of the righteousness.
[11:12:40] <Zini> All of the empire descended into civil war, with Colovia's revolts soon uniting under the Olo's as a movement for the establishment of an independent confederacy of noble estates, while the numerous kingdoms of high rock all began to pull away in a mix of the actions of specific kings and peasent revolts.  Even many of the merchant lords of the niben tried to break off, some even quietly offering
[11:13:33] <Zini> their vassalhood to the khajiiti merchant republic of the Rim.
[11:14:06] <Zini> The response by White Gold was swift and brutal.  legions marched across the lands, slaughtering entire villages in vicious attempts to put down these rebellions and heresies.
[11:15:37] <Zini> The conflict would last a full decade across the totality of the empire, as the empire in its death throws committed what amounted to mass murder in the process of its warring.  In the province of High Rock alone, a combination of starvation, disease, and massacres claimed a quarter of the population and ended several old dynasties.
[11:19:17] <Zini> By the end of the decade the empire was dead.  The church was shattered and replaced with dozens of localized variants of the eight divines, across Cyrodiil and high rock, the Reach Men destroyed the imperial fortifications and returned to their karthdoms, The Nibenay shattered into entirely independent merchant lord kingdoms, and colovia shattered half into large kingdoms and half into the sought
[11:19:54] <Zini> after estates.  High Rock as a province was no more, the formerly vassal kings now entirely independent.
[11:22:39] <Zini> 2331-2703:  The first (and less well known) interregnum begins.  Man's might has dwindled after the explosive collapse of the empire, Its continent spanning state now replaced with collections of dozens of petty kingdoms. Though emperors sit on the Ruby Throne, they rule only over the isle and some of the rumare's coasts.  They are not dragonblood, and they have lost the amulet of kings in the war
[11:22:54] <Zini> of the righteousness; Cyrodiil's most sacred relic.
[11:24:02] <Sefiriot> and then we come to Reman and Sancre Tor, yeah?
[11:24:11] <Zini> only after like 400 years
[11:25:56] <Sefiriot> ah
[11:26:04] <Sefiriot> so 400 years of wtf and lawlessness?
[11:26:12] <Zini> For the next 400 years the domain of man engages in petty feuding, warring over petty titles and land as white gold festers and elves laugh, knowing that all they needed to do was wait out the empire of man.
[11:27:55] <Zini> piracy is rampant across the abecean, to the point that the city of Wayrest is even for a period of time completely taken over by pirate bands, the noble lords and thousands of refugee populace moving to the estates of the Gardner family.
[11:30:44] <Zini> Things just seem to be getting worse and worse as news of distant and vicious invaders arrives, as the Tsaesci snakemen arrive in Skyrim and cut a swathe down the vaguely unified nordic chiefdoms and reach all the way toward the pale pass.  Just as it seems that the foreigners will succeed in penetrating the former heart of an empire, strange news reaches the ears of all of Tamriel's lords:  A
[11:34:33] <Zini> colovian commoner of nomad descent, with a small and poorly trained people's army, had not only stopped the snakes in their tracks, but had driven them to bend the knee and serve him.  Not only that, but it was reported that he displayed such a talent with tongues that would put ancient nordic masters to shame.  Reman, the first of his name, had arrived onto the stage of the world.
[11:36:29] <Zini> For the purpose of this we will not refer to Reman the divine saint but Reman the emperor.  The divine aspects of him are strange and paradoxical, both presenting plenty of evidence to confirm them while contradicting other known things about the time.  If one wants to know more about the divine Reman, it is best to seek out a nibenman at a local mission, or if you reside in the nibenay to travel
[11:37:16] <Zini> to the nearest Reman cult and inquire within.  They will be more than happy to explain his divine exploits and the nature of his conception.
[11:39:34] <Zini> Over a short few years Reman suceeded in reuniting the Cyrods, through his growing army, awesome presence, and rumors that would turn out to be true of his posession of the Amulet of Kings.  Quickly he became lord of all colovia; then lord of all niben until finally he marched on the imperial isle, amulet around his neck and an army of snakemen, colovians, and nibenfolk behind him.  Reman was
[11:42:48] mewtwo928 [~kvirc@3f38bee0.15e08640.chrlnc.sbcglobal.net] has joined #memospore2
[11:42:55] <Zini> crowned emperor of a reunited Cyrodiil, after which he immediately turned his attention to the northern men.  Over the course of just a few more years, Reman succeeded in subjugating the nordic chiefs, forcibly reincorporating the reachmen, and marching stridently down through the high rock, establishing the modern traditional borders of the province of Cyrodiil, Skyrim, and High Rock.  In all
[11:45:04] <Zini> three provinces he was revered;  In Cyrodiil for being the new dragonborn and divine ruler of man, with all the same glory of Al-Esh;  In Skyrim for his mastery of the tongues and defeat of the conquering tsaesci; and in High Rock for his Hestra-esque unification, and for the affection he showed for the methods of High Rock's rulership.
[14:02:28] <Zini> Reman based his empire's vassal structure directly off of Bretonic standards for vassalization and power echelons, doing away with titles such as chiefs or governors and instituting a system ordered from emperor to petty king or duke to count to baron, doing what he could to not destroy existing positions but simply restructure them.  Reman also set about building a new canon of the eight divines
[14:06:26] <Zini> to cover the official faith of his empire, combining the sainthood of the former estates with the old nibenese sainthood, and incorporating a wide range of nordic and bretonic heroes to accomodate and acknowledge those in his empire beyond Cyrodiil, despite the fact that the majority of nords still rejected their emperor's faith.
[14:08:49] <Zini> He also brought back the old alessian One position of the arch-primate and divided the empire into primacies for the faith to govern itself, in order to prevent the formation of any situation like was seen in the late first empire, in which the emperors acted in brutality to percieved heretics.
[14:11:39] <Zini> Despite being widely regarded as perhaps the golden age of man as a society and a technological and magical height, there is very little known about the actual actions of Reman outside of scriptures and texts for the faithful.  It is known that he funded and pursued the exploration of objects throughout the aurbis, and while no known mothships are left intact he left behind the legacy of his
[14:14:48] <Zini> battlespires, where mages were trained as far from their founding as the third era.  It is also known that he rewarded the tsaesci and the men of akavir with titles and lands within his empire, and used them for his illustrious dragongaurd and his potentates.  It is also known that he fathered many, many, many children and far more bastards- one of the greatest objects of contention following the
[14:15:20] <Zini> collapse of the reman dynasty across the entirety of his empire, including high rock, was the presence of so many individuals who claimed to be valid heirs.
[14:17:45] <Zini> Within a decade of his crowning, Reman suceeded where Borgas did not in conquering the land of Valenwood, pulling the first elven province into his empire.  By the time Reman passed of old age, he had pulled Elsweyr and Hammerfell as well into his domain.
[14:18:23] <mewtwo928> Almost to Reman in my reading!
[14:19:16] ez0lv [~ez0lv@137f4c4b.252137e.elisa-laajakaista.fi] has joined #memospore2
[14:22:09] <Zini> The nearly 200 years of the Reman dynasty was a peaceful time for High Rock.  The peasants were without want and the lords were content, despite the insurrections and brutal punishments that were dealt out under the reigns of Reman's descendents just to the east in Skyrim.  But despite these centuries of content and wealthy peace, High Rock could not escape the chaos and violence that erupted when
[14:22:29] <Zini> the final Reman met his death, and the era came to a close.
[14:22:41] <Zini> AND THAT WAS A HISTORY OF HIGH ROCK IN THE FIRST ERA